Click Here to check Photos from 2023 3rd Annual J. Yang Scholars Symposium

J.Yang Scholarship Program

The J. Yang Scholarship Program at UC San Diego funds undergraduate and graduate scholarships and research programs for the purpose of recruiting and retaining highly promising future scholars from Taiwan high schools and universities. The grant will also support student research programs for UC San Diego students studying in Taiwan; travel and residencies for UC San Diego faculty and researchers in Taiwan; and an annual bilateral symposium to discuss topics of mutual interest, including current research partnerships, results of research collaborations and opportunities for seeding future activities.

The J. Yang Family and Foundation provide $1.5 million over five years to fund these bilateral programs, including graduate and undergraduate scholarships, summer research internships, travel awards, and the annual bilateral symposium. UC San Diego is committed to a 100% match for the cost-sharing of these awards.

UC San Diego is privileged to partner with the J. Yang Family and Foundation to implement this most meaningful program. We are extremely pleased that we have funded eight outstanding students from Taiwan in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science & Engineering, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Neurosciences, and Structural Engineering. It is our strong belief that their study and research will be significantly aided by the J. Yang Scholarship, thus facilitating the completion of their outstanding education at UC San Diego for the advancement of their respective fields and improvements of the wellbeing of humankind.

For more detailed information on J Yang Scholarship Programs click here: J. Yang Scholarship Awards Information.

UC San Diego Scholars

2023

Yun-Jheng Chiu

Yun-Jheng (Celia) Chiu will pursue a Master of International Affairs in the School of Global Policy and Strategy at UC San Diego starting Fall 2023. She grew up in Taipei Taiwan, and received the Bachelor’s degree in English from National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU). After graduation, she successfully acquired her high school teacher certificate. However, she discovered her greater passion for solving unprecedented global challenges and subsequently shifted her path to work as an international news journalist in Business Weekly, the most-read business magazine in Taiwan. Here, she does in-depth reporting on how international issues are connected to Taiwan, such as COVID-19 or the Russia-Ukraine War, which has inspired her to focus on how to address urgent international problems, especially considering the Indo-Pacific Region as an arena of world geopolitical competition today. During her graduate study, her goal is to become capable of effectively adapting to the sea change brought by heating US-China competition and uncertainty in the global economic outlook. In the long term, she aims to be able to translate geopolitical changes to impact on markets, assist both private and public sectors to strike an optimal balance between risk and security while addressing social concerns, and to further create a sustainable economic future in the Indo-Pacific Region.

Chia-Ying Tsai

Chia-Ying (Ivy) Tsai will be joining Department of Chemistry at UC San Diego as a PhD student from Fall 2023. She grew up in Kaohsiung, Taiwan and received the MSc and BSc degree in Chemistry from National Taiwan University. During her undergraduate and master’s career, she worked with Prof. Jye-Shane Yang to develop both organic and organometallic functional supramolecular luminescent and energy storage materials. From these experiences, she has developed broad interests ranging from organometallic complexes to self-assemblies’ behaviors. Currently, she works as a teaching assistant and has cumulative two years teaching assistant experience in undergraduate courses and organic chemistry lab. In grad school, she is eager to explore the infinite possibilities of inorganic chemistry including innovative applications and the underlying principles in La Jolla.

Chen Hsiao

Chen (Jan) Hsiao is a newcoming PhD student in Biological Science at UC San Diego. She received her Bachelor’s and Master's degrees in Animal Science and Technology from National Taiwan University. During her Master's program, she was awarded the Chi-Seng Water Management Research & Development Foundation scholarship and worked as a research assistant at both National Taiwan University and Academia Sinica. Her research interests are focused on molecular evolution and experimental evolution. At National Taiwan University, she conducted research on population genetics and conservation genetics of Taiwan endemic mammals using microsatellite molecular markers with Professor Yu-Ten Ju. At Academia Sinica, she worked with Professor Isheng Jason Tsai on researching phenotype variation and hybridization of S.cerevisae discovered in forests in Taiwan. In her PhD program at UC San Diego, she plans to study evolutionary systems biology. She hopes to apply her previous research experience to understand how complex biological systems have evolved and how these systems function.

Jia-Huei Liou

Jia-Huei (Mandy) Liou is an upcoming Master’s student in Business Analytics at UC San Diego Rady School of Management, starting in Summer 2023. Hailing from Hsinchu, Taiwan, Mandy holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Business from National Taiwan University. During her time in college, her passion for data emerged while auditing Programming for Business Computing, which focused on leveraging Python for effective business operations and decision-making. Mandy developed strong leadership skills serving as the vice president of the Harvard College in Asia Program Taipei, as well as the president of the NTU Hsinchu Area Alumni Association. Mandy’s professional journey led her to work at Partipost, a social media crowd marketing startup in Taiwan. There, she witnessed first-hand the immense potential of data analytics in the advertising industry, solidifying her determination to contribute to its advancement. At Rady, Mandy aims to enhance her data analytics skills and deepen her understanding of the intersection between technology and business. She envisions a future where she leads the charge toward a more innovative, prosperous future for the advertising industry in Taiwan. fellowship.

Kuan-Hung Yeh

Kuan-Hung (Peter) Yeh is a first-year Ph.D. student in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology at UC San Diego, working alongside Prof. Tiffany Amariuta. Born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan, Kuan-Hung earned a B.S. in Public Health from National Taiwan University and an M.S. in Biostatistics from UCLA, where he worked with Prof. Bogdan Pasaniuc. As a quantitative researcher in the biomedical field, he is passionate about leveraging the power of molecular diagnostics to combat diseases. Further, with a deeply ingrained scientific philosophy to promote "Health for All”, he aims to transform Cancer Care and revolutionize Public Health by translating data into actionable insights. Currently, Kuan-Hung is particularly interested in developing novel statistical approaches to integrate genetic data across millions of individuals with diverse ancestries and enhance the generalizability of disease risk models, which is necessary for the clinical implementation of personalized preventive medicine.

Tzu-Hsuan Feng

Tzu-Hsuan Feng is an upcoming Ph.D. student at UC San Diego's Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, building on her solid foundation with a B.S. degree in chemistry from National Taiwan University in 2021. During her undergraduate studies, Tzu-Hsuan embarked on a journey of exploration, serving as a lab intern, and gaining invaluable exposure to diverse realms of chemistry, including organo-catalysis, nano materials, and mass spectrometry. Later, she went on to serve as a research assistant at Taiwan's Center for Condensed Matter Sciences, focusing on 2D transition metal dichalcogenides materials for photocatalytic CO2 reduction. These experiences helped her develop a profound interest at the crossroads of data processing, instrumentation, and material synthesis.

As she sets her sights on pursuing a Ph.D., Tzu-Hsuan aspires to delve into catalytic material design, biomaterial development for applications in human health, or molecular mechanism studies on electron transfer. While she is genuinely enthusiastic about these three captivating research areas, Tzu-Hsuan aims to fully explore each field at UC San Diego before finalizing her Ph.D. topic. With a strong commitment to applying material science in the realms of sustainability and green chemistry, Tzu-Hsuan envisions her research contributing to a more environmentally conscious and sustainable future.

Wei-An Chen

Wei-An Chen is embarking on his Ph.D. journey in Chemistry & Biochemistry at UC San Diego in the Fall of 2023. With a bachelor's and master's degree in Chemistry from National Cheng Kung University, he has garnered extensive research experience in organic chemistry and chemical biology, working as a research assistant in Prof. Wei-Chieh Cheng's lab at Genomics Research Center, Academia Sinica. Wei-An's research interests have primarily focused on developing natural-product-inspired molecules through combinatorial chemistry and computation to create selective glycosylation modulators that could potentially combat cancer. His work has been recognized through top-tier journal publications and numerous academic awards. Currently, Wei-An is expanding his research to develop next-generation molecules capable of modulating N-glycosylation on metastasis-related proteins and impeding the progression of pancreatic cancer. With his multidisciplinary research experience, Wei-An aspires to delve deeper into the intersection of chemistry and biology such as lipid chemistry in cells, during his Ph.D. studies at UC San Diego. Ultimately, his goal is to make significant contributions to the advancement of human medicine.

Ya-Ting Chang

Ya-Ting (Blair) Chang will join UC San Diego Biology PhD program with an immunological focus in 2023. During her undergraduate study, she researched T-cell differentiation and metabolism at National Taiwan University. To better understand host-pathogen interactions, she went to Osaka University to conduct research on HBV infection. Ya-Ting received her M.S. degree in Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, where she worked with Dr. Philip King on understanding how RAS guanyl releasing protein 1 (RasGRP1) deficiency impacts proliferation and functions of peripheral T-cells. She used ert2-CRE transgenic mice to induce conditional knockout in specific tissues. With this mouse model, she was able to study deficient T-cells without impairing the dynamic of T-cell development in thymus. She found out that loss of RasGRP1 dampens Interleukin-2 (IL-2) production and IL-2 receptor upregulation, causing T-cell cycle arrest. This study suggested that RasGRP1 is important for MAPK signaling and IL-2-dependent autocrine proliferation in T-cells, which might explain why patients with RasGRP1 mutations develop autoimmune diseases and have dysfunctional T-cells. During her PhD study, she hopes to develop her research interest in T-cell biology and explore other immunological topics such as pathogen-induced immunity and cancer immunology.

Yi-Lin Chung

Yi-Lin (Eli) Chung is an incoming PhD student in the Department of Communication at UC San Diego. He graduated from Holistic Education School in Miaoli, Taiwan, and earned his BA in Sociology and MA in Theatre Arts at San Diego State University. His research interests explore the contest between traditionalist and subversive attitudes in Japanese arts and media. During his graduate studies, he developed his research focus in Japanese theatre and history through multiple papers and a sponsored field research in Hiroshima, Japan. He specializes in popular cultural products (e.g. anime, manga, and their musical adaptations) and their lineage in classical Japanese theatre. His doctoral research will examine how creators and audiences of Japanese cultural products in these mediums envision their national and ethnic identities at a time when Japan’s geopolitical role in the Asian Pacific vis-à-vis China and Taiwan is rapidly evolving. Taiwan’s social and educational institutions are shaped by fifty years of Japanese rule and continued cultural influence. Born and raised in this environment, Eli believes he can bring a nuanced appreciation for his research subject.

Yu-Chia Huang

Yu-Chia Huang is an incoming student for Fall 2023 in the PhD program in Biological Sciences at UC San Diego. She grew up in New Taipei City, Taiwan. She received her PharmD degree from National Taiwan University and her MS degree from the Institute of Microbiology and Immunology, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University. Yu-Chia developed an interest in immunology and joined Dr. Ya-Jen Chang’s lab at Academia Sinica during her undergraduate study. She studied the innate immune mechanisms in lung inflammation. During her master’s study, she joined Dr. Chia-Lin Hsu’s lab at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University. The question that interests her is how the metabolite transporter could affect the phenotypes and functions of immune cells. She focused on the role of metabolite transporter in macrophages within the tumor microenvironment using a mouse model. Her goal for the PhD study in Biological Sciences is to be trained as an immunologist and to study the regulation of immune responses in diseases such as cancer and autoimmune diseases.

Yu-Chieh Huang

Yu-Chieh (Jessica) Huang was born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan. She received the Bachelor’s degree in Japanese Language and Literature from National Taiwan University, and she is going to be a Master’s degree student in Professional Accountancy at UC San Diego Rady School of Management starting Fall 2023. During college, she joined a volunteer group that used limited budget to host a three-day winter camp for underprivileged children. That was when she started pondering the systemic factors that influence financial decisions and she developed her strong interest in auditing and accounting. As a team leader of the Corporation Development Research Center, she studied volatile financial conditions of different corporation and speculate the circumstances occurred behind each. With her eagerness to gain real life accounting experience, she actively sought an audit position in Deloitte Taiwan’s Japanese Service Group. Since most of the clients she encountered were Taiwanese and Japanese companies, she was eager to broaden her horizons beyond Asia, to the globe. After graduate school, she plans to contribute to Rady community by leveraging the abilities she has already developed through her university studies, practical experiences at Deloitte, and active participation in extracurricular activities.

Yu-Hsiang Tseng

Yu-Hsiang Tseng is going to be a Ph.D. student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC San Diego. He was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and received his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from National Taiwan University. He had research experience in both analog and digital integrated circuits in his undergraduate career. Joining the security group led by Prof. Tsung-Te Liu, he applied machine learning and post‐processing stabilization algorithm to help construct a highly reliable and area-efficient Physically Unclonable Function (PUF). Meanwhile, He also completed a memory-efficient hardware accelerator for sequence alignment under the guidance of Prof. Yi-Chang Lu. His research interests focus on computer architecture and digital VLSI, especially in domain-specific hardware accelerators. He plans to apply to Prof. Yatish Turakhia’s lab and continues his research on hardware acceleration in bioinformatics application during his Ph.D. studies.

2022

An-Chieh Cheng

An-Chieh (Anjie) Cheng will be joining the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC San Diego as a Ph.D. student working with Prof. Xiaolong Wang from Fall 2022. He received his B.S. degree in computer science from National Tsing Hua University in 2018, and his M.S. degree from the Institute of Information Systems and Applications from National Tsing Hua University in 2021. He discovered his passion for research while working as an undergraduate researcher in Prof. Min Sun’s Lab at National Tsing Hua University. During his master’s study, he focused on problems in computer vision and machine learning. He has papers published at international conferences such as the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) in 2020 and the Conference of Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) in 2021. His current research focuses on learning 3D perception in a self-supervised manner. The long-term goal of his work is to enable machines to better understand the physical structure of the world with less reliance on human annotations. More information can be found on his homepage.

Chun-Fang Hung

Chun-Fang (Jeffrey) Hung is going to be a Master's student in Professional Accountancy at UC San Diego Rady School of Management starting Fall 2022. He was born and raised in Tainan. After participating in the Rotary Youth Exchange as an exchange student in Arkansas, he decided to pursue higher education in the US. He received his B.A. degree in Accounting from University of Oregon. During college, he was a member of UO Beta Alpha Psi and participated in the 2022 UO Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program as an income tax preparer for the local community. After completing his undergraduate study, he is looking to focus on data analytics for accounting and taxation to expand his knowledge of taxation and diversify his skill set with data analytics expertise in graduate school. With a potential opportunity to go into the tax accounting field in Summer 2022, he aims to become a well-rounded tax professional with extensive knowledge and strong leadership in public accounting who can lead a team to achieve efficient tax planning. He also hopes he will be able to contribute to UC San Diego’s business networks as an alum in the future. He has also received the Rady Incoming Fellowship for the 2022 academic year.

Yu-Peng Hsieh

Yu-Peng (Melody) Hsieh is a PhD student in Bioengineering at UC San Diego. She grew up in Taipei, Taiwan and received the Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from National Taiwan University. She was a research intern in Research Center for Information Technology Innovation, Academia Sinica during 2019-2021 and a Research Associate in NTU Centers of Genomic and Precision Medicine, National Taiwan University during 2021-2022. Her research interests focus on using technology to improve human’s health. She participated in three research studies in the field of biomedical engineering, including building a real-world pathological voice detection system with Professor Yu Tsao at Academia Sinica, integrating a reference database for improving 16S ribosomal RNA taxonomic assignment with Professor Eric Y. Chuang, and personalizing the light dosage of transcranial photobiomodulation using deep learning under Professor Kung-Bin Sung’s guidance. In grad school, she hopes to focus on brain-computer interfaces (BCI). She plans to explore new solutions to make BCI applications more translatable in real-life scenarios while preserving high performance.

Edward Lin

Edward (Ryan) Lin was born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan. He received his B.A. degree in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics and graduated summa cum laude from the University of California, Berkeley. In 2022, he will be working toward a Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. He is highly interested in the fields of Machine Learning, VLSI Architectures, Multiprocessor Systems-on-Chips and 3D Chip Architectures. During his undergraduate career, he worked with Professor Wei-Chang Yeh to develop recommendation systems using the Simplified Swarm Optimization (SSO) algorithm and data mining techniques. To improve prediction accuracy, he used machine learning skills to develop algorithms in Python for analysis and in Scikit-Learning tools for classification. In 2022, he also receives a UCSD graduate student fellowship.

Mao-Ho Wang

Mao-Ho Wang will be a Master's student in Business Analytics at UC San Diego from Summer 2022. He was born and grew up in Taipei, Taiwan. He received a B.S degree in Communication Engineering and B.B.A degree in Finance and Cooperative Management from National Taipei University. During college, he found his passion for data when working on a project that used historical future contract records to design a profitable trading strategy. Also, in his undergraduate research, he used Arduino codes to collect and analyze environmental data and put together an automatic sprinkler system for the department garden. Mao-Ho kept developing his data analytics skills when analyzing loan records for better loan management in a bank and visualizing consumer data for product innovation development in a consumer electronics company. Currently, Mao-Ho interns as a full-stack software developer in Wistron Corporation and builds web applications for Performance Management. He plans on using his experience to develop web applications independently and analyze website data to discover business opportunities within the financial industry.

Shang-En Huang

Coming from a Language Teaching and Linguistics background, Shang-En (Sean) Huang is an incoming Cog Sci PhD student who hopes to explore the amazing features of language, learning and the brain at Dr. Coulson's Brain and Cognition Lab. Specifically, he is interested in utilizing cognitive neuroscience methods to explore psycholinguistic perspectives on multimodal learning, speech filler perception and learning preferences. Previously, as an undergraduate at National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU), his research with Dr. Yeu-Ting Liu focused on EFL speaking fluency training and the proceduralization of speech production skills. Seeking different methods to operationalize his research interests, Sean completed a research internship at the NTNU Neurolinguistics Lab under the guidance of Dr. Shiao-Hui Chan, where he learned cognitive neuroscience methods such as ERP and fMRI. During his internship, he primarily worked on ERP data collection and acquired skills such as EEGLAB and SPM for data analysis. His early academic experiences not only led him to winning the College Student Research Creativity Award from the Ministry of Science and Technology, R.O.C. (Taiwan), but also ignited his interests and passion for the cognitive processes of human communication. More information can be found on their homepage.

Congratulations to Sean Huang, 2022 J Yang Award Recipient & Ph.D. student in Cognitive Science, who will represent UC San Diego at the UC Systemwide Final Round with his research talk entitled, "Soliloquizing: A Self-Practice Towards Better Foreign Language Speaking Fluency".

Yu-Hsueh Chen

Yu-Hsueh Chen is going to be a Ph.D. student in the Department of Physics at UC San Diego. He is broadly interested in condensed matter theory and its intersection with quantum information and computational approaches. Yu-Hsueh developed his interest in theoretical physics through investigating topological insulators and their applications to photonic crystals in Prof. Guang-Yu Guo’s group at National Taiwan University (NTU). After receiving his Bachelor's degree, he joined Prof. Ying-Jer Kao’s group at NTU to study topological orders using tensor networks. There, he proposed a unified scheme to detect the transition between Abelian and non-Abelian topological orders and used the symmetric tensor network to probe the excitation properties of the spin-1 Kitaev model. Yu-Hsueh's exceptional academic and research achievements made him complete his Master's degree in one year. Besides, he won the NTU-CTP Best Student Paper Award from the Center for Theoretical Physics at the National Taiwan University in 2022. He plans to explore the strongly-correlated system both in and out of equilibrium during his Ph.D. studies.

2021

Chi Fang

Chi Fang is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Political Science at UC San Diego. He grew up in Taiwan and received his B.A. and M.A. in Diplomacy at National Chengchi University. After his obligatory military service at Matzu, he joined the Institute of Political Science, Academia Sinica, where he decided to pursue a doctoral degree. Chi developed his research interests in international relations and game theory through his internship with foreign services and studies at UC Berkeley. His research explores how interstate competition interacts with domestic politics. Specifically, he examines how domestic divisions undermine states’ bargaining power amid international competition. Currently, he is working on several projects regarding international politics. First, he used survey data to examine whether and how the US public will support armed intervention when China initiates militarized conflicts against the US allies in East Asia. Second, he designed game-theoretical models to evaluate the effects of China’s gray zone coercion and Russia’s hybrid warfare. Finally, he studies the pattern of defense cooperation agreements in the Indo-Pacific and the EU to examine states’ efforts to deter challengers and to maintain international order. In the long run, he expects to contribute to the development of international relations theory and East Asia foreign policy planning.

Hao-Wen (Herman) Dong

Hao-Wen (Herman) Dong is a PhD student in Computer Science and Engineering at UC San Diego working with Prof. Julian McAuley and Prof. Taylor Berg-Kirkpatrick. His research interests lie at the intersection of music and machine learning, with a recent focus on music generation, audio synthesis and representation learning for music. His graduate study focuses on advancing machine learning techniques for music and audio. During his first two years at UC San Diego, Herman worked on deep learning models for automatic instrumentation, and he also developed an open source Python library for music generation. Through his research, his goal is to lower the barrier of entry for music composition and democratize music creation. Previously, Herman did a research internship in the R&D Division at Yamaha Corporation, working on deep neural network based musical instrument synthesizers. Before that, he was a research assistant in the Music and AI Lab directed by Dr. Yi-Hsuan Yang at Academia Sinica, where he worked on AI-assisted music generation and fundamental machine learning. He received his bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from National Taiwan University. More information can be found at his homepage (https://salu133445.github.io/).

Chih-Fan (Rich) Pai

Chih-Fan (Rich) Pai was born in Richmond, Canada and grew up in Taiwan. He received the B.S. degree in electrical and computer engineering from National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, in 2018, and the M.S. degree in signal processing and communication engineering from National Taiwan University (NTU), Taipei, Taiwan, in 2020, under the supervision of Professor See-May Phoong. In 2021, he will be working toward a Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), CA, USA. He is broadly interested in problems with strong and elegant mathematical foundations, including, but not limited to: high-dimensional signal and information processing with applications in communications and machine learning. In 2020, he won first Place in Youth Thesis Award from Chinese Institute of Electrical Engineering, Taipei, Taiwan, and Best Master Thesis Award from Graduate Institute of Communication Engineering, NTU. He also received UCSD graduate student fellowship in 2021.

Hsin-Ting Li

Hsin-Ting Li is going to be a Ph.D. student in Ocean Biosciences program at the Scripps institution of Oceanography (SIO) at UCSD starting Fall 2021. She obtained a master’s degree in Applied Ecology at Kiel University and a bachelor degree in Life Sciences at National Chung Hsing University. She discovered her passion in biological oceanography while working as a research assistant in Dr. Tung-yuan Ho’s Lab at Academia Sinica. Her research interests lie in the interaction between micronutrients and phytoplankton and the variation in marine food webs that result from changes in phytoplankton ecophysiology. She intends to conduct studies, in the laboratory of Dr. Andrew E. Allen at SIO, on the molecular mechanisms utilized by phytoplankton to acquire and assimilate trace metals and major nutrients. More generally, the genetic mechanisms which regulate associations between diatom phytoplankton and nitrogen fixing microbes (diazotrophs) and related impacts on food webs that sustain fisheries are the focus of her future studies.

Wan-Ting (Anita) Hsu

Wan-Ting (Anita) Hsu is a Master's student in Business Analytics at UC San Diego. She received the B.A. degree in Economics from National Tsing Hua University and the M.A. degree in Industrial Relations and Managing Human Resources from Warwick Business School. Afterward, she joined HR Process Integration and Data Analytics team in TSMC. As an analyst, she engaged in headcount management, cost-benefit analysis, HRIS transition, and attrition prediction. Through her experiences, she has found a strong passion for using data as a tool to transform HR domain knowledge into meaningful strategies in workforce planning, talent acquisition, and employee development. Her career aspiration is to change the landscape of HR from operational partners to strategic partners who can utilize people analytics to optimize the impact of HR policies on the employees and the business.

Jo-Hsien Yu

Jo-Hsien Yu is a PhD student in the Division of Biological Sciences. She grew up in Taipei, Taiwan, and earned her B.S. from National Taiwan University. During college, she once studied abroad at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she was first exposed to scientific research. In Sabrina Burmeister lab where the neuronal and hormonal mechanism of behaviors reveal the evolution of ethology, she investigated sex differences in the spatial learning of túngara frogs. The research project strengthened her curiosity in animal behavior and the underlying neurobiology. When returning to NTU, Jo-Hsien joined Shih-Kuo Chen lab which studies the impacts of light on various aspects of animal physiology, cognition, and behaviors. She worked on establishing the pathway in which retinal light inputs modulate social interaction and oxytocin release, and the experience cemented her interest and training in neural circuit studies. In grad school, she hopes to focus on behavioral neuroscience. She plans to use vertebrate models to explore the neural mechanisms underlying their natural behavior repertoires, which will not only expand basic science but also provide insights into how diseases and mental disorders develop when the circuits go awry.

Chin-Ta (Kiida) Lai

Chin-Ta (Kiida) Lai is currently a Ph.D. student in Structural Engineering under the supervision of Professor Joel Conte. He assists in the upgrade project of the world largest outdoor shake table (UC San Diego Large High Performance Outdoor Shake Table)— from 1 to 6 degrees of freedom. Equipped with the significant experience and knowledge that he developed while working at the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering (NCREE) in Taiwan, he is now responsible for several challenging tasks in the LHPOST upgrade project. This includes definition of the acceptance and characterizations tests of the upgraded LHPOST (LHPOST6), system identification to calibrate the physical parameters of the LHPOST6, advanced modeling of the LHPOST6 and its control system (including specimen-table interaction) for the purpose of pre-test simulation and for further improving its control system and tracking performance. Chin-Ta specializes in both structural and mechanical engineering. Therefore, he can conduct high-quality structural experiments while maximizing the capacity and performance of the test facility itself, which provides a comprehensive approach to each project. Aside from his high-quality and innovative research and studies, he is also enthusiastic about computer programming. Based on his software development work in MATLAB and Simulink, he has developed toolboxes using Python to share his research work and help others do analysis with robust and reliable software.

Ping-Chieh Huang

Ping-Chieh is a first-year PhD student in Management with a concentration in Innovation, Technology and Operations at Rady School of Management. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in Economics from Soochow University in Taiwan and received a master’s degree in Management and a master’s degree in Statistics from Arizona State University. During her master’s study, Ping-Chieh completed a thesis on linear mixed-model approximations and a compilation of applied projects on marketing, organizational behavior, strategic management, supply chain management, and machine learning. Additionally, she is a member of academic excellency in Phi Tau Phi Scholastic Honor Society, Beta Gamma Sigma International Honor Society, and Alpha Iota Delta International Honor Society. Currently, observing the economic disruption and operational risks brought by COVID-19, Ping-Chieh is interested in modeling such impact and identifying potential latent variables that may provide insights for future operations research.

Po-Han (Patrick) Chen

Po-Han (Patrick) Chen received his B.S. degree in electrophysics from National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan in 2018 and the M.S. degree from Institute of Electronics, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan in 2021. During his study at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, he focused on fully integrated power management integrated circuit (PMIC) for energy- efficient circuits and solar energy harvesting interface. Early in his research career, he worked on a fully integrated switched-capacitor DC-DC converter for mW-order SoC applications. In this project, a new output ripple modulation technique is implemented to control the output voltage ripple under different loading conditions, which can increase the conversion efficiency of the system. Since September 2021, he has been pursuing the Ph.D. degree at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA. He would join iPower3Es lab led by Prof. Hanh-Phuc Le by September 2021, and will continue to work on power electronics projects, including hybrid DC-DC converters with high conversion ratio for data center applications. The goal of this project is to address challenges, such as excessive energy consumption and large physical footprints, when implementing data centers for cloud computing or streaming services.

Ting-Yu (Tim) Lu

Ting-Yu (Tim) Lu is currently a researcher in Department of Chemical Engineering at National Taiwan University in Prof. Jiashing Yu’s lab. He will be joining the Materials Science and Engineering Program at UC San Diego as a Ph.D. student in Prof. Shaochen Chen’s lab from Fall 2021. Ting-Yu got a master's degree in biomedical engineering from National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan under the supervision of Prof. Hsin-Cheng Chiu. His past research focus on biomaterials and drug delivery. He has published five journal articles as first author. His work has been accepted for presentation at international conferences such as European Materials Research Society (E-MRS). Besides, he received the best presentation award from Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers (TwIChE) in 2019 and 2020. He also has cumulative 2 years’ teaching assistant experience in undergraduate course. Currently, his research interests include 3D printing and stem cells for tissue engineering such as bioprinted tumor microenvironments model and spinal cord injury. He plans on combining his past research experience about nanomedicine and 3D printing hydrogel systems to accelerate tissue regeneration. The long-term goal of his work is to use 3D printing to overcome the technical limitations of large scale manufacturing processes and integrate engineering and medicine for biotechnology to solve the clinic solutions for human health.

2020

Ya-Chien (Vanessa) Chang

Ya-Chien (Vanessa) Chang is currently a first year Ph.D. student in Computer Science and Engineering at UC San Diego. Ya-Chien got a master's degree in applied mathematics from National Tsing Hua University. She is interested in investigating learning-based methods with control-theoretic foundations in the context of various autonomous systems. In her first year of the Ph.D. program, her work was published in the 33rd Conference of Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) in 2019. Building on the initial success with safe and reliable learning for control, Ya-Chien is currently exploring various directions for more challenging tasks in autonomy. As the lack of safety guarantee has become important open challenges in the development of reliable autonomous systems, her long-term goal is developing practical and reliable intelligent control methods that can enable the wide and safe applicability of autonomous systems in the foreseeable future. In addition to being dedicated to research, she is the president of UCSD Taiwanese Graduate Student Association for 2020-2021.

Pin-Chung (Tony) Cheng

Read his abstract

Pin-Chung (Tony) Cheng is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Division of Biological Sciences at UC San Diego. He grew up in Taichung, Taiwan and enjoys the beautiful nature and tasty local foods in his hometown. He received his M.D. degree from Kaohsiung Medical University and completed his internship in Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital. Feeling limited by the current medical technology and the need to better understand diseases, Pin-Chung went on to study neurodegenerative disease in Yun-Ru Chen Lab at Academia Sinica, Taiwan. There he developed his skills in biochemistry and molecular biology and applied them to investigate the role of misfolded protein in ALS and Alzheimer’s disease. Afterwards, Pin-Chung completed a M.S. degree in stem cell biology and regenerative medicine at University of Southern California, where he studied how metabolism can influence muscle stem cell aging in Joseph Rodger Lab. Currently at UC San Diego, Pin-Chung is developing an interest in bioinformatics and the rapidly advancing field of single-cell genomics. He plans on using a novel single-cell assay and computational analysis to identify genetic mutations and pathways that drive cancer growth. He believes by applying these single-cell technologies, we can build a massive library of disease database that will help us gain remarkable insight into disease mechanisms and lay the foundation for developing precision medicine that will improve patient outcome.

Hsuan-lin (Charlene) Her

Hsuan-lin (Charlene) Her is a Ph.D student in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology. She grew up in Taipei and received M.D. from Taipei Medical University. During college, she joined Yu-Wei Wu's lab at Graduate Institute of Biomedical Informatics. There she explored how bioinformatics can potentially provide insight to severe clinical problems such as antibiotic resistance. She believes that the advance of genome sequencing technology will make revolutionary changes to medical practices. In grad school, she plans to explore the functions of RNA-binding protein and find novel disease mechanisms.

Ching Hwa (Hank) Ho

Ching Hwa (Hank) Ho was raised in Hsinchu, Taiwan. He graduated from National Tsing-Hua University, and received Bachelor of Science degree in 2014. Later he entered National Taiwan University for Master of Science degree, and completed his thesis under Dr. Chun-hsien Chen’s supervision in 2016. After obligatory military service, he then served as a research assistant in Dr. Chia-Chun Chou’s research laboratory in National Tsing Hua University. He came to United States in 2019 for pursuing doctoral degree in chemistry, and joined Dr. Francesco Paesani’s group in 2020. Ching-Hwa Ho’s research interests include charge transport phenomena in nano-scale materials, which was inspired by his previous research topics: molecular electronics and non-adiabatic molecular dynamics. Ching-Hwa Ho also has cumulative 8 years’ practical experience in chemistry teaching since 2010. He is passionate about conveying complex knowledge with easy languages, and arousing students’ interest by seemingly simple questions.

Ting-Chou (James) Lin

Ting-Chou (James) Lin is currently a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at UC San Diego. He was born and grew up in Taiwan. He received the B.S. degree in Electronics Engineering from National Chiao Tung University and the M.S. degree in Electronics Engineering from National Taiwan University under the supervision of Prof. Yao-Wen Chang. He worked as a software engineer at Cadence Design Systems, Taipei for one and a half years. He has published two conference papers at International Conference On Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD). Currently, he works with Prof. Chung-Kuan Cheng and focuses on a multi-objective cost-driven path-finding problem subjecting to complex constraints. He is one of the main developers of the open-source project OpenROAD. His current research interests are, including but not limited to, search and optimization, reinforcement learning, and design automation. As for future research directions, he would like to apply reinforcement learning for playing the game of design automation, where a simultaneous multi-objective optimization scheme and a sophisticated reward approximation function are needed.

Chung-Yueh (Jeremy) Lin

Chung-Yueh (Jeremy) Lin is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Neurosciences Graduate Program in UC San Diego School of Medicine. Jeremy was born and grew up in Taiwan, which was earlier called Formosa, meaning a beautiful island in Portuguese. He received his B.S at MIT, participated in International Chemistry Olympiad, performed cell biology research in the Harvey Lodish Lab at the Whitehead Institute about lipid metabolism in red blood cell development, and neuroscience research in Nobel laureate Susumu Tonegawa’s Lab at MIT about hippocampal circuit for social memories. From these experiences, Jeremy has developed broad interests ranging from molecular neurobiology to systems neuroscience, and has built a strong multi-disciplinary academic background required for advanced neuroscience research. Jeremy intends to devote himself to elucidating the mechanisms of the memory systems. He will focus on exploring two cutting-edge research topics in the rotations through the Neurosciences laboratories. The first potential project is to study the relationship between (epi)genomics and memory storage strategy in the hippocampus, and the second one is to study the functions of cortical-hippocampal circuits during memory formation by advanced techniques. Jeremy also took initiatives in several academic student organizations in neuroscience and computer sciences as he realized that the future neuroscience research will involve different skill sets. In the long run, he expects to take leadership roles in large-scale interdisciplinary research regarding learning and memory systems and neurodegenerative diseases.

Yun-An (Ann) Lin

Yun-An (Ann) Lin is a PhD student in the Department of Structural Engineering at UC San Diego. She grew up in Hsinchu, Taiwan and graduated from the National Chiao Tung University with a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering. She developed an interest in structural health monitoring through her participation in undergraduate research projects. Shortly after starting her graduate studies at UCSD, she joined the ARMOR (Active, Responsive, Multifunctional, and Ordered-materials Research) Lab to work with Prof. Ken Loh and soon found tremendous interests in designing next-generation thin film sensors for structural and human health monitoring applications. Her first research project sponsored by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, where she designed and characterized nanocomposite sensing skins for detecting and localizing damage in U.S. Army Corps structural assets. At the same time, she also worked on an Office of Naval Research project focusing on developing fabric-based pressure sensors for wounded warfighters and amputees, specifically, on mapping pressure distributions and hotspots in socket prostheses. This work was in collaboration with LIM Innovations, a socket prosthesis company based in San Francisco, CA and was where she interned during summer of 2019. Her PhD thesis research will build on her previous accomplishments, where she will design, test, and deploy wearable nanocomposite sensors for human motion and physiological monitoring. The long-term goal of her work is to develop and then leverage these wearable physiological sensors as a platform for integrating other future functionalities and that these technological advancements will find broad uses in healthcare, military, the entertainment industry, the arts, and consumer settings.

Wen-Chin (Brian) Liu

Wen-Chin (Brian) Liu was born in Hualien, Taiwan, R.O.C. He received the B.S. degree in electronic and computer engineering from National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan, in 2017; the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, in 2019. He is currently working toward a Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, San Diego, CA, USA. His current research interests include high-frequency modeling, analysis, and constant-on time control strategies of dc-dc power converters for point-of-load applications, power management of integrated circuits, high-power-density isolated dc-dc resonant converter, high-power high-efficiency dc/dc and ac/dc and battery management system. All the researches aim to achieve better energy conversion with compact size enabling future life while saving energy waste. In 2016 and 2017, Wen-Chin actively engaged in IEEE international future energy challenge competition, with 5th and 3rd place, respectively. Besides, he received the best thesis award from the EE department of National Taiwan University (NTU) in 2019, University of California San Diego (UCSD) graduate student fellowship in 2019.

Yueh-Hua (Kris) Wu

Yueh-Hua (Kris) Wu is currently a researcher at Academia Sinica, Taiwan. He will be joining the Computer Science and Engineering Department at UC San Diego as a Ph.D. student from Fall 2020. He has graduated from National Taiwan University with a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, respectively. Yueh-Hua developed his research interest in Artificial Intelligence since college and his work has been accepted for presentation at international conferences such as International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) and Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI). Yueh-Hua is interested in solving empirical problems related to reinforcement learning and imitation learning, including sample inefficiency and imperfect demonstrations. His work, Imitation Learning from Imperfect Demonstration, was done when he interned at RIKEN Advanced Intelligence Project (AIP), Japan, under the supervision of Prof. Masashi Sugiyama. Yueh-Hua worked on low-cost inverse reinforcement learning, which enables reinforcement learning approaches to directly learn the preference of the designers from demonstrations without additional labeling effort.